My Mother and Me

 

My Mother and Me

The photograph of the mother and child is a black and white Polaroid.  They are positioned in the foreground near the center of the frame.  Directly diagonal behind them is a 1950’s Chevrolet station wagon, and behind that, the skinny vertical of an electricity pole looms toward the sky.  Except for two more cars that appear in the  background, there is nothing else in the frame. Like the figures of the mother and child, the landscape appears sparse and bare, slightly grimy and dusty-looking.  The grimness of the landscape forces the spectator’s eyes back to the figures of the mother and child, who face the camera directly. Though they are two, they appear as one, a signifier of conjoined and poignant life against the barren backdrop. If not for them, the entire image and frame would be too plain and too nondescript to hold the spectator's attention.  As it is, the sparseness of the frame’s backdrop seemingly mocks those other more iconical and classical images of mother and child seen usually framed by the aesthetic plentitude of azure oceans and sky, fertile verdant meadows and saintly stained glassed windows of a chapel.  Those richly endowed landscapes  match the promise of the figures of the classic image of mother and child, unlike in this photograph.  And also unlike the passivity expressed in those images, movement and resistance is promised by the positions of this mother and child.  The mother is standing, a posture in defiance of the reclining pose of the classic mother.  She is holding the child on one slim and boyish hip with her body  thrust slightly forward, maybe due to the weight of the child, or maybe she has become impatient with the picture-taker, who has made her stand and pose with the child in such an ugly spot.  The mother’s right arm is wrapped around the baby’s upper body while the other arm hangs neatly by her side.  She holds the baby with confidence, clasping neither too tightly nor too loosely to her hips.  The baby does not rest quietly either.  Her arms are outstretched in front of her as she reaches toward someone unseen by the camera, perhaps the one who is taking the picture. The mother’s clothers and hair contrasts with the dullness of the landsape behind her.  Her hair is in a slight bouffant, too formal-looking for such a background. It is combed to the side and fastened with a child's  bow, perhaps borrowed from the baby at her hip. She wears dark-colored khaki shorts and a white blouse with a scalloped lace collar. She is dressed neatly but plain. The baby (me) wears a gingham dress and androgynous white boots that all babies wore before they became gendered.  The mother and child share the same wide forehead, high cheekbones and directness of look as they stare toward the camera.  The spectator notices then how the force of their combined presence mocks the meanness of the landsape behind them.